Brown has 'no concern' over any Norris/Piastri friction

McLaren CEO Zak Brown is confident that there won't be any harmful friction between drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in 2024, and that he and team principal Andrea Stella are fully on top of the situation.

Norris assumed the de facto team leader role this year after the departure of Daniel Ricciardo at the end of 2022, who was replaced by rising rookie talent Oscar Piastri.

Norris has been at McLaren for five seasons, but until this year had been the junior driver still learning the ropes. Now Piastri has arrived, and with a single campaign already pushing the Briton on raw pace and race craft.

While Norris duly finished with more points and higher up the standings, Piastri recorded a breakthrough win for the team with victory in the sprint race over Max Verstappen, in which Norris finished third.

Now that Piastri has completed a successful first season in F1, there are huge expectations on him for next year that could end up putting him on a collision course with Norris.

• Read also: Criticism over dropping Ricciardo ‘was very difficult’, admits Brown

But Brown says he doesn't expect the pair to fall out like so many evenly matched team mates at other squads over the years, such as Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at Mercedes or Max Verstappen and Ricciardo at Red Bull.

"There's an awareness that anytime you have two drivers, one is going to have to beat the other at some weekends," Brown acknowledged. "There will be a day, probably sooner rather than later, when they're looking after their own interests."

But Brown insisted that it was "not a concern" and that the current situation was actually benefitting the team. ""They're super competitive right now, you feel a real energy around them driving for the team.

"I feel Andrea's and my strengths are around driver management," he ventured. "I think we can get ahead of that and manage it to make sure it stays a healthy competitiveness."

"Having once driven - not as fast as either of these two guys - I think helps to understand the psychology of the driver and when and where and how to approach [them about it].

"I have seen you can approach drivers at the wrong time and you actually make it worse," he added. "We've all seen from our experience in F1 that you can see train crashes coming."

Norris and Piastri did collide at the first chicane in Monza in the Italian GP, which had forced the team to make an early first intervention.

"After Monza, which is the first and only time they touched, we had a very healthy - there was no sweat - conversation. We didn't wait till it happened a second time, or a third time.

"It strikes me from the outside looking in sometimes that you've seen things escalate [at other teams] and it doesn't appear the team has jumped in soon enough.

"You don't know exactly what those team bosses do, but you kind of sit there and go: 'I'd be kind of getting on that now'," he commented.

If McLaren's dramatic improvement in form over this summer and autumn extends into 2024 then the drivers could be battling over race wins, which would test Brown and Stella's driver-whispering talents to their fullest.

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